


For Me, It's Been an Eternity

by whoviangoesthere



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Character Death, Gen, M/M, Post-Season/Series AU, Season/Series 15, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 08:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11665560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoviangoesthere/pseuds/whoviangoesthere
Summary: Tucker isn't going to let this happen.  Not ever.Or: An AU following the events of S15 Episode 17.  SPOILERS THROUGH s15x17.





	For Me, It's Been an Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few days after episode 17 came out, after I recovered enough to write. It became irrelevant come this week, but I still wanted to post it now that the episode is public.

              Tucker saw Wash fall in slow motion.

              Everything else fell away.  The gunfire went quiet.  Everyone’s shouts dimmed to nothing.  It was just Tucker, staring at Wash as he went limp, as he fell, as he hit the ground, the impact the loudest thing he had ever heard.

              Then it was all back in a rush that took Tucker’s breath away.  People were screaming.  Someone roughly pulled him down into cover.  He couldn’t see Wash.  He couldn’t breathe.

              A sniper shot rang out, followed by the sound of another body hitting the floor.  Tucker would never be able to forget that sound.  The heavy gunfire stopped, and there was a brief silence before the rest of the zealots kept firing.

              “Flank them!” Tucker heard Carolina shout.  Her voice was hoarse and weak.  Tucker pretended it was because she was recovering.

              Two more shots, two more bodies.  Tucker heard Sarge let out a whoop of joy.  Tucker didn’t care.  He threw himself around the corner of cover, trying for a glimpse of Wash.  He saw steel legs sprawled on the ground.  A stray bullet forced him back down.  Tucker closed his eyes and tried not to panic.

              He failed.

              This time, when the bodies fell, Tucker just saw Wash.

              “We’re clear!” someone shouted, and Tucker moved.

              The worst was the noise.  It was a sick gurgling sound that Tucker never wanted to hear ever again.  There was blood everywhere, and Wash was feebly grasping at his throat.

              “Get his helmet off.” Carolina came out of nowhere, limping, barely conscious.  She knelt next to Wash and pressed her hand to the hole in his neck.

              “Now, Tucker.”

              The shakiness in her voice made Tucker’s blood turn to ice.  He turned to Wash and pulled his helmet off as gently as he could.

              Wash’s eyes were wide and unfocused.  His mouth was moving but all that was coming out was that horrible noise.

              “Get him onto the Pelican,” Locus demanded, reappearing behind them.  “We can’t stay here.”

              The whimper Wash made when they lifted him had Tucker’s heart breaking.

              “It’s gonna be okay, Wash,” he murmured as they settled into the Pelican, Grif wordlessly moving into the cockpit.  “It’s gonna be okay, you’ll see.”

              There was silence as they took off, as everyone clustered around Wash as he stared up at them, unreadable expressions crossing his pained face.

              “Which way?” Locus asked, breaking the tension.  “After the Blues and Reds?”

              “Fuck the Blues and Reds!” Tucker screamed.  “We need to get him to a hospital!”

              “Closest one’s on Chorus,” Carolina muttered.  Her hands were soaked in Wash’s blood but she held firm.  “Trusted.”

              No one argued with her.  Locus gave Grif the coordinates.

              “Just hang in there, okay?” Tucker whispered, wrapping his fingers around Wash’s.  “It’ll be over soon.”

* * *

              Wash had gotten shot before.

              Every time, it hurt like hell.  The bullets tore his body apart and he always wondered if he was going to make it.  He always did.

              This time, it didn’t hurt.

              He had felt something, heard the bullet.  He fell to the floor and he couldn’t breathe because _fuck there was a hole in his neck, when did that get there?_

              But it didn’t hurt.  Not really.

              For a few moments he had been alone, and he had tried to call for help but nothing came out, and he was scared.  But then Tucker and Carolina were there, and someone was holding him, and it wasn’t so bad.

              He thought of Maine when they had moved him, and the burst of pain knocked him senseless enough that he was hallucinating again.

              He had been standing in the corner of the room, looking at him as he was pulled away.

              _Look at me, Maine!_ Wash had wanted to call out.  _Now I’m just like you._

              Now he was back again, in the Pelican.  He had his helmet off this time, and he was smiling, the mass of scars on his throat moving as he laughed.

              _I know_ Wash told him with his eyes.  _I was stupid enough to go and get killed._

              Maine’s face softened and he shook his head.

_Not stupid_ he responded just as silently.  _It got you here.  With me._

              He held out a hand, beckoning Wash forward.  Wash looked around.  At the Reds and Blues surrounding him.  At Carolina, still stoically pressing at the hole in his neck, the love in her face betrayed by her eyes.  At Tucker, who was holding Wash’s fingers and kissing his head.

_Not a bad way to go_ he thought.

              He looked back at Maine and closed his eyes.

* * *

              Wash had gone very still beneath Tucker.  Carolina’s hands began to shake.

              “Tucker,” she whispered.  She lifted her hands off of Wash’s neck.

              “Stop, what are you doing?!” Tucker pressed his own palms to the wound.  The blood flow had slowed.  Wash wasn’t moving.

              “Tucker,” Carolina repeated, holding out an arm.  “Tucker, he’s - ”

              “No,” Tucker said, because of course this wasn’t how this was happening.  They still had another hour to get to Chorus.  This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.  “No, we need to get to Chorus.  We need to take care of him until Chorus, Carolina, don’t you get that?”

              She took his arm gently.  There were tears in her eyes and for once she wasn’t trying to hide them.

              “Tucker, we have to - ”

              “No, fuck that!  You want to give up!  You want to just say that this is it, this is the end, when it’s not!”

              She pulled his arm then and he managed to escape her iron grip the first try.  He pressed his hands into Wash’s neck like his entire life depended on it, and goddamnit, it did.

              Her second attempt, she drove all her Freelancer strength into tackling him and pinning him down, and he fought her as much as he could because she was _giving up on Wash, on her brother, on everything_.

              “Let me go, goddamnit!” Tucker screamed.  He noticed everyone staring at him but he didn’t care.  “I have to help him!”

              “You _can’t_ ,” Carolina growled, and the entire ship heard her voice break.  “ _He’s gone._ ”

              There was dead silence, and Tucker realized that the horrible noises Wash had been making had stopped.

              He stopped struggling.

              “Fuck,” he breathed.  He couldn’t look at Wash suddenly.  “Fuck, jesus, _fuck!”_

              There was a hot lump in his throat, and he tried to make tears come but they wouldn’t, so he just sat there, staring at nothing, as everything he cared about lay unmoving beside him.

              “Agent Washingtub?” Caboose asked, his bottom lip quivering.  “You need to wake up.  Tucker is upset…”

              Tucker forced himself into a ball, facing away from everyone and everything.  This wasn’t happening.  _This couldn’t be happening._

              “I know what would wake you up, Agent Washingtub!” Caboose’s voice had brightened.  Tucker hated it.  “There is a really cool machine that will wake you up!”

              “The hospital’s too far away, buddy,” Tucker managed.  He couldn’t see Caboose like this, with actual hope in his eyes.

              “Not the hospital, Tucker.  The machine the mean people who stole Church had!”

              In the corner of his eye, Tucker saw Carolina perk up.

              “What kind of machine, Caboose?”

              “Oh, it sounded pretty cool.  It had doors, and lots of parts that I did not know how to read, and it was made of a train set, and - ”

              Tucker stood up so suddenly he hit his head.  He ignored it and marched to the front of the Pelican.

              “Turn this goddamn ship around.”

* * *

              The first few times through the time machine, Tucker failed.

              He watched helplessly as Wash got shot, again and again, and he had to feel the life bleed out from beneath his hands, again and again.

              He had to kill Temple again, each time with Tucker thinking of new creative ways for the bastard to go while his friends secure the machine so they could start over and _again, again, again._

This time, he got it right.

              He tackled Wash in time, and he listened to the sweet and beautiful sounds that were Wash drunkenly describing his current hallucination that Agent Maine was sitting on him.

              “That’s not Maine, Wash,” Tucker said as he dragged him to cover.  “It’s just - ”

              Then a bullet found its way into Wash’s skull.

              This time, he strangled Temple where he stood.

              One time, the bullet isn’t a stray.  It’s a misfire from Tucker’s own gun.

              One time, Wash manages to say more than two words before a craze zealot skewers him with a knife.

              One time, the first time he sees Wash’s face, half of it is burned off from a grenade that Sarge threw.

              Temple was beaten to death.  He was burned, impaled, shot in more places than Tucker cared to count.  Eventually, Tucker walked into the room and shot him in the face point blank.  He was tired.

              Tucker could repeat the conversation around him verbatim.  He knew exactly when everything was going to happen.

              As Wash walked out into the fray, Tucker just grabbed his hand and walked with him.

              The shot missed them both.

              A sniper shot rang out, and the zealot fell.  Carolina ordered everyone to flank the rest.

              Tucker stood stock still with Wash, who was looking at him with his head tilted to the side.

              “Oh, hey, Tucker!” he said, his voice far away.  “You look an awful lot like Big Bird!”

              The gunfire stopped.

              This time, Temple was arrested by the UNSC and charged alongside the rest of the Blues and Reds.  The ships left Chorus.

* * *

              When Carolina and Wash were admitted to the hospital, Tucker wouldn’t leave Wash’s side.  Even after he had fallen asleep.  Even after Carolina had smiled and told him that maybe this one time, he had gotten things right.

              Tucker was playing with Wash’s fingers when he stirred.

              “Tucker?” Wash groaned.

              “Yeah, man.  I’m here.”

              Wash sat up, pulling Tucker’s hand with him.  He realized what was happening too late, and they both blushed.

              “I’m glad you’re okay,” Wash started.  Tucker bit his lip.

              “Me too,” he responded.

              There was silence.

              “Look, Tucker,” Wash began, stuttering slightly.  “When Temple…when he told me that he was going to - ”

              “Just shut up, okay?” Tucker ordered, gripping Wash’s hand tighter.  “I’m okay now, it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re – as long as you’re - ”

              Tucker stared at Wash’s freckles like they were the most beautiful thing in the world.  His eyes traveled down to his neck.

              “ _Oh goddamnit,”_ he whispered before pulling Wash into a hug.  Wash gasped and stayed motionless for a few seconds, before his arms pulled Tucker tight against his chest, and the two were intertwined.

              “Don’t.  _Ever_ ,” Tucker sighed into Wash’s shoulder.

              “I won’t,” Wash replied.


End file.
